


Where Her Heart Lies

by ChloeWinchester



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Car Sex, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 00:42:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3830791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeWinchester/pseuds/ChloeWinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle can’t let him walk away from her again, not when she knows how she feels. She won’t let him slip away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Her Heart Lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Johniarty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johniarty/gifts).



Belle stood there, twisting her wedding ring and fighting not to cry. Her knees were shaking, and she folded her lips tight to keep her tears from falling. She didn’t want to do that, not in front of Will she...didn’t want him to see her like that. She didn’t trust herself to be vulnerable with him like that.

He let her go.

He gave her heart back, pressed it so gently back into her chest...and the moment she had it back she remembered the well. She remembered what his heart looked like and why...why he was doing this.

She took another step toward the door, watching him slowly disappear from view. He thought he wasn’t worthy of her, he chose her happiness over his own, he wanted her to be happy and have what she wanted. What she…

Belle looked back at Will, swallowing. “I… I have to go,” she breathed. He nodded at the floor, biting the inside of his cheek. Thunder rumbled outside.

“I know you do,” he assured with a shrug, hands shoved in his pockets. “Pointless fightin’ true love, ain’t it?”

She smiled a little, faintly, and ran out of the shop, the bell clanging loudly with the storm brewing outside.

He hadn’t gotten far.

He was pressed against the side of his car, sank down on the ground and crying into his hand, the other pressed against his chest, over his battered heart. He hadn’t meant to collapse here but it was too much. Her sweet face, her bright, beautiful eyes, the sweetness of her voice and all that strength he could feel in her pulse… Oh, he loved her more than he could bear, and letting her go 8was the hardest thing he had to do. But it was for the best, it was for _her_.

The thunder covered the rushed clicking of her heels on the pavement, a drizzle starting to form from the darkening gray sky and Belle called to him.

“Rumple!”

He looked up slowly, lighting flashing miles off behind her as she ran. “Belle?” He stood slowly, confused and searching for an answer. “Belle, what are you doing here? Get inside, the storm-”

“No,” she said firmly. “I’m not going anywhere. I don’t want to.”

“I don’t understand,” he whispered.

“I know,” she chuckled. “You think you aren’t worthy of me, Rumple. You think someone needs to protect my heart and you’re wrong. On both counts, you’re so wrong. No one needs to protect me but me. No one decides what my heart wants but me.” Her lips shook a little. “And I know what it wants, Rumple. And it isn’t Will.”

He stared at her, the tears coming back to his eyes. “Belle...All I’ve done is cause you pain. And he was there for you, with you after I-” He looked away, ashamed. “I can’t hurt you anymore, Belle.  I’m a monster, you know I’m a monster, there’s hardly any good left in me, and I don’t know if I can be salvaged.”

“No,” she whispered, stepping closer to him, close enough to touch him. “No, what you’ve done? Is given me love. And caused me pain. You aren’t a monster, Rumplestiltskin, not yet. There is good in you, I’ve seen it at the most raw level you could have shown me. I know you’re good. Just then, just now in the shop, do you know what you did?” He shook his head. “You _chose_ me.”

That’s all she’d wanted. She told him months ago, dagger in hand, rage boiling over in her small frame that that was all she could ever want. Just to know that she was more important to him than power, that’s all. But now...now she knew she was more important to him than his own well-being, his life, his power, his want to keep being able to love her. What he’d done had been his last gift of real love that he could ever give her.

But she wouldn’t let it end there.

“And I’m...choosing you. Not that there was much of a choice to be made,” she laughed wetly.

He swallowed, wanting to reach out and touch her but afraid she might not want it, afraid he was hallucinating this and she’d disappear the moment he tried. Wishful thinking was a horrible, horrible thing that often manifested from his unsound mind and he wouldn’t put it past himself for this to be fake too. She’d been fake so many times…

“Belle, I, I don’t want to hurt you anymore,” he said softly. “I want you to be happy. With...Will.” He forced his name out like a piece of lead was stuck in his throat.

“Rumple, I don’t love him,” she pressed, taking his hands, proving she was solid and very, very real.

“You-?” He frowned, confused.

“No,” she whispered. “Sure, I care about him but...not like I care about you. I...I love you. I love you more deeply than I could ever hope to love another person on this earth. I love _you_. You...You’re my true love.” She smiled, a tear sliding down her cheek.

The rain picked up.

“I remember the well,” she said. “I remember what you said. Your heart… Why you’re here-I know why you’re doing this, Rumple, I know you’re telling me goodbye. But I won’t let you. I won’t let you go like this. I’m going to fight with you.”

She held his face between cold and now wet hands. “I’m going to fight _for_ you.”

He sobbed once, pulling her closer and kissing her when she leaned on her toes to reach his mouth.

Thunder rumbled over their heads, the rain coming down hard and soaking both of them through. Belle trembled, skirt and short-sleeved blouse feeble against the cold rain and the wind, but she didn’t break away from his mouth. He enclosed her in his arms, holding her tight to his chest, hands splayed on her back.

They broke away to breathe, foreheads pressed together, Belle’s entire little frame shaking from her lips to her ankles and he pulled her closer. “You’ll catch your death out here, Belle,” he whispered, draping his jacket over her shoulders and hugging her.

She kissed him again, tasting his skin in the water she sucked from his lips and staring up at him. “C-car,” she trembled, nodding back to it.

In moments she was lying in the backseat with him on top of her, the warmth of the car, the dull pattering of the rain on the roof and the windows accompanied their breathing.

“Better?” He whispered, his lips brushing hers when he spoke. She nodded, breathless, and slid her fingers through his wet curls, pulling him into another deep kiss.

His tie and waistcoat came off, her heels fell to the floor, her blouse unbuttoned with his searing lips pressing hot kisses against her breasts, his own shirt opened all the way down. She watched him drag his tongue over the wetness on the swells of pale skin above her bra, goosebumps coming in waves from both immediate heat and lingering cold on her body.

She closed her eyes and moaned his name very softly. She missed his body. His attentiveness, the quiet growls that came from his lips with each new taste of her. No matter the circumstance, Belle always felt like a goddess in his arms.

“Y-you were my last,” she stammered out, blinking up at him, makeup smudged around her eyes. “In case you...wondered.” He touched her chin in delicate fingers and kissed her so gently, smiling a little.

“You know, I can’t say I’m unhappy to hear that,” he whispered. She laughed a little, shutting her eyes again when he kissed her neck.

The longer they ground their bodies together and stripped more of their clothing, the more opaque the windows became from their heat, sweating with condensation made cold from the rain and wind outside.

Belle’s tights slid from her legs and Rumple held each separately and carefully, kissing from her ankles to the inside of her thighs. He kissed her again while Belle eased his shirt off entirely, tensing when she touched the scars on his back. Zelena’s permanent reminders. He winced each time they were touched on sheer reflex.

“Shh…” Belle soothed, sitting up to reach him better, legs spread. “I love you. All of you.” Her fingers traced them, gliding down his spine. “Oh, I love you so much, Rumple.”

He looked at her a moment before capturing her mouth again, lying her down and sliding a hand under her skirt. Belle’s hands tightened on his shoulder blades, the cold touch to her lips through her panties hitching her chest.

She whimpered, gasping as he steadily worked against her hot skin, kissing her breast again, where he’d put her heart back. He could feel it thrumming through her skin, pounding with desire and exhilaration, just as the battered, blackened mess in his own chest was doing.

Soon Belle’s skirt was pushed up, her panties on the floor, her nipples out, pert and teased by deft fingers and a well traveled tongue. She was flushed and desperate, the dichotomy of cold and hot on her flesh still causing her to sweat.

She helped him push down his trousers and his underwear, choking when he pushed his way inside of her. “Rumple…”

He wrapped his arms around her, eyes misted once more  as he pulled her close. “My sweet Belle,” he whispered. “My beautiful, sweet Belle, I’ve missed you so. These lips, this voice, this body...the way you look at me. I never thought I’d see it again.”

Belle kissed the tears from his eyes despite the ones standing in hers. “Neither did I,” she said. “But I… I’m glad that isn’t what happened.” Gentle fingers slid up his neck and into his hair. “Move, Rumplestiltskin. Please. Help me remember you. Help...help me remember my husband.”

The pair of them crying now, they kissed again, shuddering as he rolled his hips into her body. Belle’s legs tightened around him, body rolling back into him, urging him as lightning flashed and thunder rolled to mask the moans and cries of pleasure that came from desperate mouths. Desperate bodies joined together and exhausted minds finally at ease with each other. Hearts, pure or black, throbbing with love again.

Belle lifted her head to kiss him just as he dipped to kiss her neck and their heads bumped. They winced, they giggled, they nuzzled together and lost themselves in each other. Lost in the slow, unhasty sex they’d found themselves in, in the hot breaths against still warming skin, the connection that was never severed only lost for a moment.

“Oh, Belle…”

Wet, laughing, crying and moaning they had found each other again. And as their fingers laced together, two wedding rings grinding against each other, everything, it seemed, would be okay. They had taken this first step to healing together, and the rest would follow.

“Rumple!”

 


End file.
